Walking Through Ephesians 1

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So that's a guaranteed way to keep the prayer request down is to have a substitute teacher in. All right, so we're going to be looking at Ephesians chapter 1 verses 15 through 23.
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But it's been so long since I had the last had the opportunity to share from this epistle of Paul's.
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I want to I want to read the whole chapter and just take a couple of minutes.
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Ephesians chapter 1 Verse 1, your page is turning.
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Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, Grace be to you and peace from God our
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Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our
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Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
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According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
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Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also that after that ye believed you were sealed with the
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Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory.
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Wherefore I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Lord Jesus, in whom and unto,
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I'm sorry, Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
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For the Lord, for the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power.
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Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
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And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
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Let's pray. Holy Father, we pray that as we open your word that you would open our hearts to receive it.
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We pray that you would bless this time. We pray that you would use this time to strengthen us in our faith and to help us love you more and help us to know you more, in whom to know is to love.
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For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. So what I want to do is briefly as I can, seeing how rich the prior verses had been up before verse 15 through 23,
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I want to try and bring us up to speed. The city of Ephesus was in what we understand is modern -day
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Turkey, and if you were in Corinth, and you booked passage, you came straight on across 200 miles, you would find yourselves about a mile shy of where you want to be.
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Ephesus was a mile off the coast, and it was a massive city for its time, weighing in at about 250 ,000 to 300 ,000 people, and it had a prominent trade route that it ran through it, as well as it had the largest banking institution of its time, so it made it to be this massive hub for commerce.
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This all along with the fact that the location was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
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There was the temple of Artemis, or you might be more familiar with the temple of Diana, as she's known in the book of Acts, and this temple was a huge, huge building, so large that if you've ever been to Greece, or you've ever watched a
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TV show about Greece, or read a book about Greece, you saw the Parthenon, you know, it sits up on the
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Acropolis there, so you've got this huge hill, and on top of that, this is huge building, Parthenon.
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You pick the Parthenon up, and you stick it inside the temple of Diana. It seated some 50 ,000 people, people who came as pilgrims to worship this false goddess, which made even more revenue for the local businessmen.
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Now, Paul only stopped there briefly on his second missionary journey, but then he pushed on to Jerusalem.
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However, on his next journey, he would remain there nearly three years, during which time he had a great influence on the people who were there, so much so that the local tradesmen, seeing a decrease in their trinket trade, and with a somewhat of a genuine concern that Diana's greatness was being destroyed, they staged a riot, causing him to leave there and never return.
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His last contact with the leaders of the churches there would take place in Miletus. Miletus, right here, about 35 miles south of Ephesus.
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Now, Paul wrote this letter during his imprisonment in Rome between 60 and 64
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AD, and there are several Greek manuscripts that do not include there in verse 1 at Ephesus.
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Which leads many scholars to believe that the letter was not intended solely for the the city of Ephesus, but it was in intended to be copied there and then widely distributed to the churches in the surrounding area, and this thought being supported by the omission of, after nearly three years, there's no personal or specific greetings as was
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Paul's custom in any other letters, save for Tychicus, or if you want to call him
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Tychicus, and he's the guy who's delivering the letter. So the first half of the letter, or the first three chapters, was made up strictly of indicatives.
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Indicatives are facts or steadfast truths, and in this case they're indicatives about God.
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The last half of the book is loaded with imperatives, and those are authoritative commands, and in this case to the people of God.
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So in the beginning there, again in verse 1, Paul nails down his authority as an apostle because this came under distress.
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I guess people were always trying to to say that he was not an apostle because he was called later.
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So he right out of the chute in verse 1, he puts that to rest, and then in verse 3 we see as he instructs his readers to bless
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God. The word there is eulogos, and it's where we get the word eulogy, and it means to speak well of.
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And so this blessedness that we have for God, he has blessed us, and so we bless him, but the blessings that we have are not to be confused with some type of heavenly 401k package containing forgiveness and new life and hope and so on, because in reality what we receive is
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Christ himself. We are united to him. We are filled with his spirit such that all that he has achieved for us has become ours.
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Blessings, verse 4 and on, tells us such as election and adoption and redemption, sanctification, forgiveness, wisdom, prudence, making known the mystery of his will.
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So down in, jumping down to the beginning of verse 9, having made known unto us the mystery of his will.
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So what does he mean by the mystery of his will? It's a mystery. He's not talking of some puzzle that still needs to be solved, but more a secret that can only be known when
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God reveals it. When I separated from the Air Force for a little over a year,
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I worked for an electrical contractor wiring commercial buildings, and one of these buildings was a large church over in Arlington, and the entire building was surrounded inside and out with scaffolding.
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I mean more scaffolding than I'd ever seen on a job site. And it was built out by an older man and his adult son, and the scary thing about that is the the older man,
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I'm older than he was, and I look back and say, man, I thought he was old, and now
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I'm older. Anyway, you could get somewhat of an idea of what was behind it, but not until the whole thing came down completely did we see what the builder really had in mind all along.
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And that's the way it is with the Old Testament. The Old Testament times,
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God's Word had traced out a pattern of his single -minded purpose. It was hidden in his heart and mind, and yet there were slight glimpses all along the way such that the
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Old Testament was similar to that scaffolding. It was temporary, like scaffolding, and yet it bore the shape of what he had been planning throughout eternity, such that when when
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Christ came, it had fulfilled its purpose. It could be dismantled, revealing fully the mystery of what was behind it, and we see that mystery was shaped like Christ all along in his coming, and that was
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God's plan all along. And Paul, it appears to me that he loved to think about God's hidden plan as a mystery, and the reason
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I say that is if you read through it, it's just six chapters of the book of Ephesians, you'll find out that he uses this word mystery seven times in just this short epistle.
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So again, all these things that we listed there, all, verse 4 continues, are according, the first word there in verse 4, according as.
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Now the ESV reads even, and here that really loses the meaning in the text.
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The ESV is not not foreign to this word.
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In Philippians 419, the ESV does use it, and we can see the difference that it makes.
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In 419, Philippians says, but my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
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So this word, according, speaks of a supply that's not out of, as if God had this big jar of supply, and we come to him with our needs, and he reaches in there, and he gets, and he hands it to us, and now his jar is less, has less in it than when we came for the next needy person that comes along.
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That's not, that's not true at all. The Greek word used in both our texts there is the word kata, and what has more to do with is in relation to, or proportion to, such that God's supply is infinite, because he is overflowing.
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He is infinite. So we read, according, read verse verse 4, it says, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
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Verse 9, jump down there, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself.
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Verse 11, in whom we, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined, predestinated, according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
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Verse 19, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power?
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All this and what, he says, after the counsel of his own will, and all to what?
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Verse 6 says, it's to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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And if we didn't get it there, verse 12, that we should be, should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.
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Verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory.
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It's interesting to note that this whole long single run -on sentence or paragraph up to verse 12,
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Paul has been speaking of the Christians in the first person plural.
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He uses the words us and we, and he does it in every verse from verse 3 to 12 except for verse 10.
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Verse 3 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
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Verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
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Verse 5, having predestinated us unto the redemption, the adoption of children. Verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the
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Beloved. And verse 7, in whom we have redemption. Verse 8, wherein he hath abounded to usward.
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Verse 9, making, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, of his will. 10, didn't have it.
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11, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance. Verse 12, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.
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And it's only until we get to verse 13 that we see clearly how he qualifies this we and the ye.
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Look at verse 13. Now we've been we and us up to this point and then he shifts gears right here.
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In whom ye also trusted. After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
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In whom also that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
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So at first glance you say well, he's he's just probably talking chronologically, you know, in order.
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We trusted first, now ye also trusted. But as we continue into this letter we find that he distinguishes it more and more between the the us, the you and the us.
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So what is the distinction between the two? Well, there's actually two, but one of them is is ethnic.
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Paul is is part of the us or we. He's part of the Jews. Whereas the
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Ephesians or more broadly the Gentiles are the you. Look across your page or maybe you need to flip a page to chapter 2 verse 11 and we get a clearer picture.
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Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision.
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Circumcision in the flesh made by hands. So the good news for us is that just in mentioning the distinction between the two in verse 13, we also see the difference has been overcome in Christ.
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He says ye also trusted. We're the ye. We're the Gentiles. The converted
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Gentiles. After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after ye believed.
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So in Christ the Jewish and the Gentile believers, all of us, share the same privileges.
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So I suppose you could say based on Romans 116 that the we and the ye were both chronological and ethnic at the same time.
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For Romans 116 says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. And because of all this
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Paul had heard of the faith in Jesus of these Christians. Coupled along with their love for the
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Saints. And what does it do? But it prompts him to do something regularly. It prompts him to pray.
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He says wherefore, where we at here, verse 15, wherefore
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I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love unto all the Saints cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers.
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That the God of your Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him.
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The eyes of your understanding being enlightened. So he beseeches the Lord that he would bless them with spirit, a spirit of wisdom and illumination.
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And as I said, Paul's prayer is so general that it could be used in any age or place by any
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Christian. And his petitions are for these three things. That they would learn the hope of God's calling.
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They would learn the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the Saints. And lastly, what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe?
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So addressing the first, concerning the hope of his calling. This hope that he's speaking of here in the middle of verse 18.
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That's not to be confused with with wishful thinking. My middle son got married this past Sunday.
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And if you saw a weather map of Florida, you know, so it's not just Tampa.
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It's not just the Gulf Coast. Not just the Atlantic Coast. All of Florida.
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They hoped that it wasn't going to rain. But it poured.
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No pictures outside. No ceremony outside. Everything's moved inside. Or you say,
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I hope that I'll do good on this test. Or I hope I'll get this promotion. This is a different kind of hope.
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This is a hope that is, it's an assurance of the reality of what we haven't fully experienced.
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It is a confident expectation of what God has promised. And thankfully, its strength does not depend on us, but it is grounded in his faithfulness.
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And we can be sure of this because the love of God has already been poured out into our hearts in the person of the
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Holy Spirit. Paul stated it this way in Romans 5, 5, and hope maketh not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the
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Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. And what we don't want to miss is, it is the hope of his calling.
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He took the initiative in our salvation. There are two calls that go out.
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There's the general call of the gospel that goes out to all people. Jesus used the word in a sense when he said,
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Many are called, but few are chosen, in Matthew 22 14. And this invitation goes out to everyone.
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Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, Acts 16 31. But we know, at least
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I know, so many people who ignore this invitation or make up excuses for why they won't respond.
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But then there's the effectual call, and that's a call that always accomplishes God's purpose of saving his chosen people.
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Paul writes in Romans 8 30, And these whom he predestined, he also called, and whom he called, he also justified.
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And these whom he justified, he also glorified. And we can be assured of the sequence of this because it's in God's Word, and he proclaims it, and it does not change.
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Charles Spurgeon compared the general call to the effectual call in this way.
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He said that the general call was like, if you've ever been out on a warm summer evening, and you saw that heat lightning, it lights up the sky, but doesn't ever seem to hit anything.
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He said that's what the general call was like. Whereas the effectual call was like a lightning bolt that always connects, and it is this effectual call of God that actually saves the one who's called.
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The question is, why is it that Paul holds hope up as such a priority to which he was called, and now he prays for his friends?
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Is it just a coincidence that he puts it at the head of his list? We need to think about it this way.
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How we live as Christians is in large part determined by how we think about the future, good or bad.
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This is the case. People who prepare for a job, they go to school, their hope is fixed on it.
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That's a good way. On the bad side, what drives people to kill themselves or kill other people?
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Aside from some other things, obviously, I would say that it was because they have no hope.
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In reference to our text, we could say that the purpose behind God's revelation about the future given to us in his word is that it would change the way we live today.
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And again, Paul was not the first to teach in this manner. Our Lord spoke of future events.
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In Matthew 25, he speaks to his followers of the final judgment and the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.
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And he says of the sheep in verse 34, Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand,
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Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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That's a motivation. I suppose though the one that stands out the most to me from this passage
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I preached was what I preached at my grandmother's funeral from John 14.
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It's a very familiar passage to all of us. In a passage I brought in the hope that those of my relatives outside of Christ would be caused to stir their thinking about their standing with God.
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The one who was their righteous judge and the one who would he call them to himself as followers or would they be as the goats from Matthew that are cast into outer darkness.
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In that John 14 passage, our Lord has just told his disciples, one of you is going to betray me.
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And then he's gone on to tell them that he's leaving and the place he's going to they can't go.
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And yet just consider how downcast they were whenever he heard, whenever they heard his words and yet he doesn't just leave them in this this state, but he speaks words of encouragement and these are words that are based on future events.
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John 14 1, he says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.
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In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
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And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also.
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And whither I go you know, and the way you know. And Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?
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Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
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Just a few verses later in verse 13, he says, and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will
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I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And just so they knew, and they weren't to be left comfortless in verse 26, he says, but the
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Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
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I have said unto you. So what has our Lord just done here but spoken words of hope, words full of power to encourage, words to reshape our outlook on life and how we live it, because we need to see clearly as possible if we are to live faithfully here in the present.
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Let me read verses 18 to 25 again as a group. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of his glory, of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us where he believed according to the working of his mighty power, which he hath wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
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So now what we read here is the second matter. He would have our eyes enlightened to look on, and the end of verse 18 says, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
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And although some may say that he's referring to God seeing us as inheritance, and he does see us as a chosen possession, still that doesn't fit into our text here where we're reading, for the other two petitions are referring to blessings that we receive from him.
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And consider this, the inheritance they then had in Christ was more than likely all the inheritance they would be receiving, as no doubt their families would have disinherited them after their conversion if they were from a
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Jewish family, and then also those of them that were Gentiles, people who were formerly steeped in the worship of a false
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God, practicing dark arts, manufacturing idols, these people would have either burned their spells and books or abandoned their
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Diana craft and with them a lucrative living. And so it is that Paul here, one who may very well have been disinherited by his own family after his conversion, seeks to turn their sights towards what is theirs in Christ.
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That which cannot be taken from him, and having this laser focus on not on what lays behind, but what lays straight ahead on a life without regrets.
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And what we need not lose sight of ourselves is that Paul is not writing to the lost that they would have their eyes open, but the letter is written to Christians people, people who they have seen the light.
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The light of the gospel has opened their eyes and yet there is so much more to see.
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When we're first converted, we're a lot like the blind man of Bethsaida, spoken of in Mark's gospel in chapter 8, where it says of our
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Lord in verse 22, and he cometh to Bethsaida and they bring a blind man unto him and besought him to teach him.
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And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town, and when he had spit on his eyes, he put his hands on his eyes.
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And he asked him if he saw a lot, and he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking.
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After that, he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up, and he was restored and saw every man clearly.
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When we're first saved, we're a lot like this man upon the
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Lord's first touch. He was no longer fully blind, but still his vision was such that the men that he saw that were walking around looked like trees.
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There's a big difference there. And so, as a child,
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I had prior to my diagnosis of very poor vision and receiving my first pair of glasses, when
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I received them, I can remember how amazing it was to see so clearly.
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I can remember turning off from our street, a street off of ours, onto the street that we lived on, sitting in the, like a big dog, sitting in the front seat, because it was just me and my mom coming back from the doctor, and looking out the window, and then looking at my mom saying,
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I can see the leaves on the trees. That was, it was just like an epiphany. You're supposed to be able to see the leaves on the trees?
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Because I was used to seeing trees walking. So, yeah, after three years of elementary school, people thinking that I was stupid, they found out
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I was blind and stupid. So, anyway,
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I mean, to be able to go to the doctor's office and literally not be able to sit down, and when he says, what's the lowest letter that you can read, and not know that there's an
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E up there? It's a big, there's a big difference. And so, just like this man, or myself physically, there's so much more to be seen spiritually in this new life we have been brought into in Christ, because it's endlessly rich.
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We look, and we look, and we look, we look in the same Bible, we've been looking in the same
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Bible for the last couple thousand years, and still we look, and we never find the bottom.
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And this would be why Paul, who up to this point, he's already basically given him a degree's worth of instruction in the
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Gospel. What is he praying, though, now? Now, he's still praying that the eyes of their understanding would be open, and that God would give them new hope in this amazing inheritance.
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And now, this final petition of verse 19, he says, what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe according to the working of His mighty power?
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I think to a certain extent, most of us would agree that we have a tendency to equate power with money.
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As we have already discussed, many of the early Christians had experienced financial loss because of their faith, and it is in this financially challenged state that these
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Christians are in that Paul seeks to have them grasp the reality that there is great power available to them, even in their weakened state in Christ.
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Paul himself was no stranger to their dilemma, and it was while he was in it, he realized that there was strength to be found in this weakness, and in fact, he actually gloried in it.
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Second Corinthians 12, 9 and 10, He said unto me,
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My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
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I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
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Therefore, I take pleasure in the infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities, and persecutions, and distresses.
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For Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Then when we are in it, do we always feel like it's a good thing?
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When we're in those distresses, when we're in reproaches, necessities, persecutions, it doesn't always seem that way, at least it doesn't to me, but by faith, by God's word, we are.
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So his encouragement to them was that this one, who he has made known, this one that dwells in them, the
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Holy Spirit of God, he was greater than that which was in the world.
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And they needed these words of security then, just as much as we, as God's people, need them today, tonight, right now.
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The form or the degree of the power that's coming against us, that may change with time, but the reality of the presence, as well as the hostility to the gospel, it's all the same.
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And it's for this reason we need to have our eyes open, not so much to the fact that God has power, but as the text reads, that they may be opened to what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us, who believe according to the working of his mighty power.
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It's not just enough to be able to say, I believe God has power, but I believe that God has power towards me, to us.
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In the next few verses, we see how Paul spells out for us in detail the power standard of what he's speaking.
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Beginning with Christ's resurrection, then his exaltation, finally his victory over all powers that are or will ever be.
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So in verse 20, and we'll preface it beginning with 19b, according to the working of his mighty power, and then verse 20, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
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So as amazing and wonderful as a thought as this is, that Christ who was dead and buried was raised up from death, and we would all say amen and amen.
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Still we've got to remember that these are Christians, and as such they would have known this already.
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He was at the center of the gospel. But what appears to be Paul's design here is to see that although they have not yet been resurrected bodily as Christ, still
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God's resurrection power was already working in their lives by the means of spiritual resurrection.
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I mean, this is the testimony of our baptism. We say we're buried with Christ in the likeness of his death, and what?
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Raised in the glorious likeness of his resurrection. It's the same power that raised
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Christ from the dead, raised him from the grave. That's the same power that works in us.
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Look over at chapter 2, verse 5. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us.
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This is he. He hath made us alive together with Christ. By grace ye are saved.
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We see our spiritual death being overcome by Christ who makes men spiritually alive.
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Next we see a picture of Christ's exaltation at the end of verse 20. And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
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Paul didn't just come up with a neat way of sharing a word picture of Christ's position with God the
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Father, but instead he draws from Psalms 110, verse 1, a Psalm of David that reads,
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It's the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
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And the reason that this sounds so familiar to us is that it's not just found here, but the
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New Testament writers allude to this or refer to it directly no less than 30 times.
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So the old adage that men need to be told things twice, men need to be told things twice, we all need to be told again and again and again because we're apt to forget.
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And if we forget, then we're apt to lapse into whatever we've forgotten.
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No doubt the Holy Spirit is driving home the importance through these men that Jesus our
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Savior sits at the right hand of God, fully enthroned in a majesty and power. So why isn't he standing beside God the
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Father instead of sitting? His work's complete, right?
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The writer of Hebrews put it this way, Hebrews 1, 1, God who at sundry times in a divers manner spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
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Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
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Christ's work as our sacrificing priest is finished. Now he has begun the story in which his victory over death and sin and the devil is being worked out to a final end.
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And although his work of our salvation is complete, this only, this does not mean that he's done.
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But rather than, I think we can have a misconception that he's seated so he's just treading water.
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He's just sitting there without taking care. But rather than resting, he's reigning.
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He reigns over all. In fact, from what the text reads, it says he towers over all principalities, over all authorities, over all dominion.
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And these would have been words that the Jews would use to describe as high -ranking angelic beings unless we think any other way of these words.
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Ephesians 6 reads verses 11 and 12. Put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
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Why? For we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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There is no ruler greater than Christ. There's no authority that can derail him.
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There's no power that can withstand his power. There's no dominion that can prevent his advancing.
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And this is not just how he was back in the day, but this was and is and is to come his state because as Andy prayed, he cannot change.
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He's immutable. Nor will he change. And as amazing a truth as this is, it's not the final climax.
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Verse 22, it says, And he has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church.
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So what we find is that Christ is over all things, not for his own glory alone, but to the church.
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In other words, he's reigning over all things. He subdues his enemies. He withstands all the evil forces for his glory and in order to safeguard us, his church, in order to bless us, his church, his chosen people.
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Do you remember the last words the Lord spoke to his followers prior to his ascension?
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In Matthew 28, 18 through 20, he said, That's all power. That's all authority is given unto me.
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Where at? In heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
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And lo, I am with thee always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
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And the Lord's good hand is both guiding and guarding his people until such time as we no longer have an enemy to come against us.
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That theme is echoed from Romans 8, 39, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Nothing. And as this first portion of the letter draws to a conclusion, we're given yet one more assurance of Christ's earnest care for us.
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Verse 23, Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Think about that statement.
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Christ cares for the body. And what do we read? Which is his body.
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Paul in just this first short chapter has used no less than four words to describe the saints.
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Chosen, adopted, inheritance, and now his body.
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And it's such a familiar term to us, isn't it? We don't think anything about it.
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But what we might not know is Paul's the only one who uses this term in the entire
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Bible. So the question would be, did he coin the phrase?
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Did he invent the term? Maybe based on his Damascus Road experience.
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Saw yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest and desired of them letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that he might, if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto
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Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
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And he fell on the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
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And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
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It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Paul was working overtime in his pursuit of squelching this fledgling church, and yet the
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Lord doesn't say, why persecutest thou them? Why persecutest thou the way, it says there, of the church?
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But he says, why persecutest thou me? And although this may have put flesh on the bones of that thought, actually the use of the body as a collective group was actually a
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Roman term. Now what do we know about Paul? A, he's a Jew, and B, he's a what?
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He's a Roman, exactly. I feed her little bits, you know, so she can jump in there and shine.
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No, yes, he is a Roman. And so the Roman society pictured the whole body as needing each part so that all the parts were mutually dependent.
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So do we know for sure what he was thinking, whether or not it was original or whether or not it was
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Roman? We don't know, but either way, neither addresses the strange ending to the verse.
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The fullness of him that filleth all in all. And at first glance, you'd say it was another puzzle, but upon closer examination, it appears that he's just, he's summing up everything that he said in this first chapter.
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That is that Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth. There's nothing beyond his control.
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There's nothing outside his presence. Nothing he's not master of, nothing. And where here, he is the
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Lord of all things. John calls him the maker of all things. All things were made by him, and without him, nothing was made that was made.
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And Colossians calls him the creator of all things in the parallel passage in Colossians 1 .16.
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For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities, powers, all things were created by him and for him.
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So, Paul ties the whole description of Christ and his church up, and he puts a bow on it for us.
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He's the creator, he's the conquering Lord, he's the head of the church, filled with all the fullness of God.
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He fills all things. He rules all things for the sake of this body, which is his fullness.
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The church is the community which Christ and whom God's fullness dwells, filling it up, as it were, with his presence, and he's flooding it with his grace, he's conforming it to his image until here we see it filled with his likeness.
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All this is what it means to be a member of this church that he has called us to.
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All these are the privilege that we enter into by God's grace, to which the
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Ephesians and us tonight need, as we've read here, to have our eyes open to see how rich we are.
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Let's pray. Holy Father, we pray,
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Lord, that you would forgive us when we think that you don't have our best in mind.
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We go through extreme difficulties, sicknesses, financial problems, family problems, so many things, and yet in these things you're there.
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We pray, Lord, that we would never think that we've been left alone, but that you love us, that you care for us, and that you meet our needs according to your will.
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Bless us, we pray, as we go out from this place. Help us to be your witnesses.
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Lord, we pray that you would be with our pastor as he is away. Pray that you would be with him as he preaches, be with him as he travels back.
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Pray that you would use him to be a blessing, as we know he will be. And we pray,
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Lord, that you would bring him back to us safely. Just pray the same for us as we go out from this place.
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Guard over us, and if you tarry, Lord, we pray that you would bring us back to this place this Lord's Day. For it's in Christ's name we pray and ask all these things.
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Amen. I have no idea.